A Walk in the Woods

My friend Cherie, who has twisted my arm into biking, then into running, also got me into backpacking. 

The summer after I moved back to Washington, she invited me along on a family backpacking trip. Her dad Jim had been going to this semi-secret lake for much of his life, and in 2013 he was headed to the hills again with his daughter and grandson, a three-generation group. Cherie's husband Brian and I rounded out the pack. The hike was challenging, including a bit of hand over hand climbing, and pushing through overgrown fisherman trails, but I was pretty well hooked from the start. 

My family did a bit of hiking and camping when I was quite young, and I started camping again in my early twenties. I love so many things about it. Being outside in the wilderness is restorative. I feel so present, away from the comforts and routine of home. I actually appreciate how long it takes to make coffee and cook food when I am camping. It just seems to make me appreciate everything a bit more. 

Backpacking adds another level to it. You have to carry everything on your back, thus reducing how many comforts you want to bring along. You also have to carry this weight up and down hills, rather than just from your car to your tent. When you get to that secret or not so secret lake at the end of the trail, it feels that much sweeter that you got there under your own power. 

And once you are there, life is just so gloriously slow. You have nowhere else to be. Time to sit and enjoy your coffee. Time to wade into the mountain lake. Time for a day hike through the woods. Time to sit on a log and read, surrounded by the sounds of nature. Time to fish if you hauled that inflatable raft that nearly crushed you. Time to just be. 

I think our group has been on four backpacking trips, but it has been a few years since we headed to the woods together. Summers can fill up fast, and then the pandemic and the appearance of my hip arthritis made it a non-starter. Prior to 2020, I had applied several times to get a permit to hike the Wonderland Trail solo, but have come up empty each time. With the new hip and the limits on running, I want to get back into backpacking again.

My YouTube watchlist has been filled lately with backpacking videos, and also bikepacking videos where they trade shoes for wheels, trails for roads. Part of it is the anticipation and desire to get moving again, but I think this happens every tax season. As the hours increase, and the weekends away from work disappear, mental plans are made for the summer, something to look forward to after April 15th. 

In the meantime, and as part of the surgery recovery, I have been going on longer walks lately. The place that has become a regular favorite is Bridle Trails Park. It is a wooded oasis in the middle of the city. There are three main trails - 1 mile, 1.8 miles, and 3.5 miles, and you can mix and combine based on what you need any particular day. I choose the 1.8 when Izzy is with me, and the 3.5 when I leave her at home (much less stopping and sniffing). Every weekend it seems I find a new tree that captures my attention, and the trail is always a little different based on the weather, time of day, and level of sunshine breaking through the trees. From the name, you obviously see horses pretty regularly, but I have also seen owls and deer on my walks. 

My body and brain are better for it every time I go for a walk in the woods, even if only for an hour or two.

Scenes from this weekend.

The road ahead looks very different

 In 2019 I took up triathlon. It was something I had been meaning to do for years. I suppose it seemed somewhat inevitable after running and biking for the past fifteen years. An Ironman had been a bucket list kind of item for years, but procrastination postponed my getting in the pool and tying the sports together. Inevitable or not, it felt shiny and new. 

And I loved it. 2019 was the most excited I had been about sport and exercise since I suppose my peak efforts between the fall of 2012 and the summer of 2013 (marathons on two consecutive days, then one-day STP and Ramrod a week apart). In the summer of 2019 I went from Googling triathlon information to doing a sprint distance, an Olympic distance and a half Ironman distance within three months.

I was hooked, and excited for the following year. I ultimately signed up for two Half Ironmans and one full Ironman for 2020. Then of course, 2020 happened. "And then 2020 happened" has been said and written thousands of times, and I have a feeling it will stay in the vernacular for a long time. 

Things didn't get cancelled all at once, so there was training and cautious excitement for a few months. Then as it became clear that the show(s) would not go on, I found some other challenges and reasons to stay on the road and in (relative) shape.

And then 2021 happened.

After a run on January 5th, I was sick for several days. These days whenever I feel off, I fear the worst, but thankfully the Covid test came back negative. At the same time, Mom had been growing more sick since Thanksgiving. I had been going over to their house four nights a week to help out, and with each visit it was more difficult to have hope. The visits and tax season hours made getting in a run more difficult, but I think the lack of hope spilled over into feelings of "why even bother." I didn't run another step until late March.

When I started running again, everything seemed to hurt. This is pretty typical after a long layoff, but it wasn't just that sort-of-satisfying muscle soreness from getting in a workout. The pain that lingered started with what I thought was a hip flexor issue. I took time off, I stretched, I massaged with a foam roller, and when none of that worked, I tried running through it. Running through it has worked at times in the past, but not this time.

The pain then spread and increased in frequency. My right thigh muscle would quiver and I would occasionally get shocking pain in my right hip and IT band, buckling my leg out from underneath me. My body was failing me, and the hopeless feeling settled in. 

After trying all I could think of on my own to improve things, I finally decided to go to the doctor. I was due for a check up anyway, so I could ask about my leg pain while taking care of that. My previous primary care doctor had recently moved out of state, so it took some time and hoop-jumping-through to get a new doc and appointment. 

I saw the doctor on Tuesday. He already had my bloodwork results, and other than cholesterol that is a bit high (but not high enough to require medication), nothing was out of order. We chatted a bit about other health items, and I received a general thumbs up for my health as a 54 year old. 

We started talking about the leg pain I had been experiencing. At the outset he suggested physical therapy, and honestly getting a referral was another reason for my visit. He then checked my range of motion, find where I would grimace in pain, poked and prodded while asking additional questions. He thought it was unusual that the pain had been going on for this long, so he recommended getting an X-ray. I walked down the hall and took care of it immediately.

To too late cut a long story short, the doctor called an hour or so later and told me that they found that I have moderate to severe arthritis in my right hip. Googling told me that moderate is level 3 and severe is level four. The scale only goes up to four.

I took the news pretty hard. I don't know what this means long term for my mobility, and more specifically my running. As I have written about for years on this blog, running is a big part of my life, a big part of who I am. It of course has made me physically stronger, and I have relished taking on challenges, seeing how the limits I think I have can be pushed through. Running has also done wonders for my mental well being, and I have already been suffering the consequences of its absence these past six months. 

Running was also a big part of my future plans. I would complete that Ironman. I would notch that 20th marathon, and then keep going. I would see what all the talk about ultras was about. I would do that relay run, splitting some 200 miles between twelve (or maybe even six) companions. I still want to be that 70 year old guy that shows up at the local 5k every year. I want to see more start lines. Beyond running, I want to continue to backpack and take on the Wonderland Trail someday (if they ever grant me a permit).

After the doctor's call, I left work early and went for a walk. I walked the Kirkland waterfront and rail-to-trail loop that I have used so often on my training runs. As my mind spun, I tried to begin processing what it meant, what I was feeling. To find my feet, as it were. In those first few hours, all I could see was loss, and hope fading once again.

I left the trail to return to the waterfront, randomly turning down a street I had not walked on before. A couple of blocks later, I saw this book in the planting strip by the curb.

Well played universe. Well played.

I was fortunate to get an appointment with a physical therapist the next day (there was a last minute cancellation). The PT was not ray of sunshine, "we can conquer anything" enthusiastic about things, but he was encouraging. The PT did his own evaluation of my mobility, walked me through some recommended exercises, and put our next two appointments on the calendar. I tried not to press him for outcomes so soon in the process. He did hint that marathons may be in the past, but he did not write off running entirely.

This is all new. To be frank, I am still working through the freaking out/distraught stage of things, but I am moving toward finding the path forward. It will take a different kind of hard work. My training calendar will be filled with more PT exercises than events, but I will also be squeezing in more non-impact biking and swimming than planned. 

Yes, I am happy and fortunate to have generally good health, and there have certainly been larger losses for me this year, but this still hurts, and I am going to sit with it for a bit. 

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Blown up map on my office wall

So we come to the final installment of this one, two, three, four part story of the Turning Fifty/Wonderland Trail/will the hike be as long as these posts journey.

As mentioned before, I was pretty jazzed about this trip. I read books, attended an REI presentation, researched gear, and blew up a map of the trail to hang on my office wall. Whenever I felt buried in taxes, I would look up at that map like it was a literal window to the outside. When April 1st rolled around, I would constantly check my email looking for the all critical message letting me know I would get in. The website mentioned that you had seven days to respond to the invitation, so after a couple of days I thought to check my junk folder as well. If Google had marked it as spam and I missed it, my head may have exploded.

After a week or so, I logged onto the permit website and found this update.

I had previously had good luck with lotteries. Well, not lotteries for money, just ones where you sign up for the opportunity to beat yourself up for pleasure. I lucked out on the first try to ride Ramrod in 2013, and "won" again for the chance to run the St. George Marathon in 2016. The above notice told me the odds weren't looking good for a third round of luck.

I kept refreshing my email inbox at unhealthy intervals, but consoled myself that if I had to, I would go the first-come, first-served permit route for the few reservations they set aside each year. Work is a bit more flexible in the summer, so I figured I would drive down to the park, see if I could get in, and if not, go back to work for a couple of days. Then I would drive down again, rinse and repeat until I could get my foot in the door/on the trail.

Then I got the email denying me a permit.

I was pretty disappointed. I had really built this trip up in my mind to the point to where I was almost depending on it. I sort of sulked for a few weeks, wondering how realistic the day-of approach to getting a permit would be. At some point, I logged back onto the permit website and found this new update.

Click to embiggen

I am not sure how "a large number of the camps are now full on the entire circuit through the end of September" happens when they say they hold back 30% of the reservations, but whatever. This note made it pretty clear that I would not be hiking the Wonderland Trail in 2017. Having now made that decision (or having it made for me) it allows me to take summer plans off hold and hopefully get out on some shorter adventures.

The ultimate goal was to get outside and disconnect - and I suppose reconnect with parts of myself set aside. Getting outside always refreshes my soul, and The Wonderland Trail would have brought this to another level. However, I need to learn to recharge my mental and physical batteries on a more daily basis. You can't depend on a two-week getaway to make up for an entire year.

There is now an additional (great) complication that made an epic trip less feasible this year.

Shifting gears, but to be continued again.

Trying to get the golden ticket

So, as I mentioned in the first post, I was looking for something a bit epic to mark my fiftieth year. In the second post, I found that epic thing in the The Wonderland Trail, and just needed to get in.

There is a lottery to get a permit to hike the trail. They take applications from March 1st to March 31st and then start drawing names at random in April. If any spots are available after they get through the first batch, they take the ones after April 1st in order they were submitted. The website says that they hold back 30% of the spots to walk-ups, so theoretically you could show up on a random Tuesday in August and try and get in. For a trip of this size and necessary planning though, this would make things much tougher.

The permit is really a permit to stay overnight on the trail, as anyone can day-hike sections. To that end, when you submit your permit application, you send in a planned itinerary of when you will start, how long it will take you, and most importantly, where you will be each night. There are four major trailheads and a few smaller ones where you can start, you can hike either clockwise or counter-clockwise, and the suggested duration is from nine to thirteen days.

With all of these variables, it is fortunate that the people who wrote this great book have created an online trip planner. You can play with all the variables to try and dial in a plan that has you stopping at your desired campsites and having (somewhat) manageable distances each day. After monkeying around with things for several nights after work, I landed on an eleven day trek going counter-clockwise, starting at either Sunrise or Mowich Lake. The eleven days had me averaging about nine miles a day, and it made it easier to hit the campsites I was looking for.

I chose counter-clockwise for a couple of reasons. First, they say that the uphills are a bit steeper going in this direction, and the downhills a bit less so. The downhills seem to put more strain on my back, so I chose the direction with more gradual downhills. The other is that most people choose to go clockwise, so by swimming upstream, I would see a larger number of new faces. So when March came around, I had four different hopeful itineraries, starting at different trailheads, including one going in the opposite direction.

When you fill out your application, you can also check boxes that you are willing to have different campsites, go a different direction, etc. I checked them all to be as flexible as possible, hoping to increase my chances. I also left open the start date to a two-week window. I would have liked to have been even more flexible, but there are a few things on the calendar that limited things. First, because of the huge snowfall this year, certain campsites would not be open until July 31st, and by late August, the second tax season is in full swing. I filled out my first choice itinerary and clicked the button to go to the next page to enter in my second and third choices.

Except there was no next page. Turns out it was a waste of time to have multiple plans, and you only get one chance to throw your name in the pot. The website warned that it could be until mid-May before you heard whether your ticket was golden.

Now, all I could do is wait.

The Wonderland Trail

I have been watching a lot of YouTube lately. Probably too much really. For the last few months it has pretty much replaced TV/Netflix/Hulu so there isn't really more screen time, but it is all couch time. One of my favorite channels is the Vlogbrothers. I will write about them later but on one of the videos where they take questions, one of the viewers asked, "What are you most excited about right now?" Before answering the question, he praised it and said this is something we should always be asking ourselves.

It is easy to have your days and years become dulled when you lack a place to focus your passion. Adding to this, without that focus, passion dissipates. I assume this is not rare, but there are long periods of my life where the days pass by with almost no notice. The common question on Monday is, "what did you do this weekend" and many times I have to stop and think. It is not that I don't have semi-regular adventures great and small, but again the memories seem dulled. Without a level of passion, it is like I am not fully there.

Anyway, for the past few months, I had an answer for "What are you most passionate about?" Through all the long days and short nights of tax season, I was thinking and planning for The Wonderland Trail. When I got home each night, I would be researching the trail, watching videos about backpacking advice and following people who were hiking the Appalachian Trail to try and get a sense of what it felt like. Over the past few years, I have slowly accumulated the necessary gear for a long backpacking trip, but now the focus would be on trimming back on the items to reduce weight and make the hike a bit easier. Every ounce saved would make the hills seem a bit less steep.

And there would be hills.

The Wonderland Trail circles Mount Rainier, covering some 93 miles. Though you don't climb anywhere near the peak, you still climb and descend 22,000 feet in the process. Looking at a profile of the hike, it seems like there are no flat spots, and you are always on one side of a climb.

There are several designated campsites along the way where you must camp, so no pulling over at some random spot in the woods. You not only need to get a permit to hike The Wonderland Trail, you must have a planned itinerary before heading out, reserving a spot in each campsite you plan to hit. In other words, you don't get to decide that you are feeling a bit sore and take an extra day in camp. You have a place to be each night, and miles to go before you sleep. Even getting away from it all has necessary structure.

The reason for the structure is that they allow only a certain number of people on the trail at one time, This is both due to the number of campsites and also to balance access with keeping the park in good/wild condition. Due to these limitations, each year there are more people that want to hike the trail than there are spots. Much like popular marathons and other events, there is a lottery to get in.

This year seemed perfect for The Wonderland Trail. This longer trip was sort of a progression from the backpacking I had done in the past few years. I had most of the gear, some of the know-how and enough experience to (think that I could) do it. In past years, I have had overlapping running and biking goals that interfered with each other. This year, there were no crazy runs or rides to train for so I could pretty much focus on backpacking. Plus there was that fiftieth birthday knocking on the door. This would be the year.

I found what I was most excited about. Now I just needed to get in.

To be continued (again)....

Cresting the rise

I have been feeling broken down lately. I have plantar fasciitis pain that has kept me from running for two months. I am currently wearing a boot to bed to try to keep the tendon stretched out. My right wrist started hurting the other day, so I had my carpel tunnel brace on as well. Pieces of me encased in hard plastic to keep me from hurting myself while I am sleeping. Danger, fragile!

On the last couple of bike rides, I have felt like I just don't have it anymore. I was climbing the last hill on the Seven Hills of Kirkland ride last month, which was actually the ninth hill because we opted for the longer route. I was really struggling. It is a difficult ride, but one I tackled well last year. As I tried to will myself up the hill, I wondered if my peak days were behind me. Was I now "over the hill" physically now that I can't climb this one. There was another tough ride a couple weeks later that felt harder than it should have been.

Intellectually, I know the day is coming where the times on the stopwatch will only increase. There will be no further personal best times, and the challenge of events will become something else. I do want to be that 75 year-old guy that is still out there running, and showing up at 5ks for the enjoyment of it all, race times be damned. Emotionally, though, I am not quite ready to give up. I still want to feel like I am on the up-slope of that metaphorical hill, even if I am climbing it more slowly.

Everyone has their own definition of when they are "old". Maybe it is a number, maybe it is an activity you no longer can do, or it could be the number of pills or splints it takes to keep you moving. My semi-joking line is that when I no longer sleep in a tent with just a Thermarest between me and the ground, then I will feel old.

I tested my "old" theory again this weekend. A few of us went on a "test" hike before our return to Delta Lake in August. A couple of us wanted to test out our new packs, and we all wanted to check our fitness  level before scrambling off the maintained trail. We hiked to Copper Lake, no small undertaking in itself, but ended up getting rained out and coming back early. It turned out to be a good thing.

My right arm had been bugging me for a couple of days. It felt like a nerve pinch starting in my shoulder, maybe from planks I had been doing during June. Thursday and Friday, I started noticing red blotches on my arm and hand. They were more painful than itchy, and I jumped online to check on the symptoms. There was a recent measles outbreak in Washington (thanks anti-vaxers), as well as an increase in Lyme disease from tick bites (though I hadn't made it to the woods yet). Nothing quite lined up, so I headed to the hills Friday morning.

Sunday morning, the pain and blotches were joined by some numbness in one finger, and swelling in another. Another possibility dawned on me, and after some more WebMD surfing, it was off to Urgent Care. My Internet research turned out to be right, unfortunately (I hate it when I'm right). I have shingles.

More on what that means in the next post, but just the diagnosis of "shingles" has me feeling pretty old. I am not giving up on on that hill just yet, but it does feel like I am starting to crest the rise.